by Five Sisters

Created on: August 18, 2009

All things great and small were even smaller that afternoon as the sun beat down hard on everything in its path. What wasn't smart enough to take cover, withered down into unrecognizable pulpish puddles before oozing off into secret shadows to try and regroup and reform.

I was caught off guard too, unloaded in a drop zone disguised as a destination on a vacation package brochure. Dropped smack in the middle of the pulp and confusion by a shuttle bus that went way too fast.

Pressing my luck, I took more than a minute to find agreeable shelter as the town looked absolutely abandoned. Two-by-fours covered windows. Four-by-eights covered doors. Nothing covered me; and as my brain started to cook and my arm hairs started singeing off at quite an unpleasant rate, I instinctively set off for somewhere other than the middle of the empty road. Choosing to dart under a weathered overhang, I dropped my bags, my books, and myself and sat still taking the whole of the unknown in.

Ghost Town True Tours would be back to get me in three days time and it was my job to figure out what to do with myself till then. Yes, included in my package there were hosts and actors waiting to provide for me a "true" experience but at that exact moment I was too damn hot to care why they were all missing.

I must have sat for an unreasonably long amount of time for a young lady all dolled up and looking like Laura Ingalls sauntered in from out of nowhere and handed me a jug of water.

"Are you okay?" she boldly asked. "You were supposed to come find us out but we started worrying about you when you didn't get up. I hope you don't mind my intrusion..."

"Oh, not at all. I'm okay. I've just never ever felt heat like this and I kind of got stuck."

"Drink," she ordered.

She didn't have to ask me twice.

"Do you want me to vanish now or show you the way?"

"The way would be nice right about now."

Without saying another word, "Laura" picked up my bag, handed me my books and swiftly led me to an entrance off in the back of the building. Once inside, she put my bag down beside me, rang a tiny bell on the table by the stairs and quickly vanished down the hall. In less than a minute a plumpish beauty stood before me welcoming me wholeheartedly into her establishment. Her curls and bonnet bounced as her pronounced gestures of gracious reception rained down all around me.

"This bell is for you. If ever you need something

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